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Google Will Stop Scanning Student Email for Ad Purposes

The change may also be coming to government in the fall.

After backlash about its policy to scan student email for potential advertising, Google announced that it turned off the ad scanning feature in Google Apps for Education that combed through education Gmail accounts.

The change may also be coming to government, business and legacy free users of Apps for Education in the fall, the company shared in a blog post on Wednesday, April 30. To be clear, Google didn't have ads turned on for students from the beginning and just allowed school administrators to turn advertising on or off.

But the company still scanned their email as they do with other users for advertising. In addition to the ad scanning change, administrators will no longer be allowed to turn advertising on or off as they used to.

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This change comes about as a national conversation has been going on about student data privacy and how to protect student data. A day after Google's announcement, the White House released a report with a recommendation to ensure that student data is only used for educational purposes.